This invention relates to interactive media guidance systems and more particularly to interactive media guidance systems that record media presented as episodes in a series, such as episodes of a television program series, any other program series, or any other type of series. This invention is an improvement on the basic series recording functionality that exists today (sometimes called a “Season Pass”). Series recording functionality relates to a user selecting to record a program that is part of a series. When the user selects to record a program that is part of a series, a media guidance system automatically schedules to record each episode of the series that is aired or will record “new” episodes of the series that are aired for the first time.
When users of an interactive media guidance system discover a series late (such as late in the season of a television program series), or miss viewing or recording some or all episodes of a series (within a season or one or more seasons of an entire series), it is often difficult for users to access or to view the episodes of the series in episode order or to capture the repeats (i.e., re-runs) of episodes that were not originally recorded. While many, most, or all episodes of a series may become available over time (as re-runs), not all episodes may be available at once or in the order that they were presented in the series. For example, a television program series may be in syndication, but not all episodes of the television program series may be available at one time, and some episodes may never be re-run.
Some media content may be episodic content. Episodic content typically is self-contained within each episode and does not include a common storyline with other episodes of the media content. For example, episodes of the series “Seinfeld” are typically episodic. Viewers may watch one episode without watching all of the previous episodes in the series to understand the story. However, other media content may be serial in nature. Serial programming is any programming containing a temporal component, such as a recommended order of viewing. Serial programming may share themes and/or plot sequences with other episodes in the series.
An example of serial programming includes episodes of the series “24.” A user who watches an episode of the series “24” out of sequence may not recognize or understand certain characters, themes, or plot elements that were introduced in previous unwatched episodes. This often causes the viewer to be confused or to lose interest in the media content. To comprehend episodes of serial programming fully, other related programming must typically be watched prior to watching the serial programming, or the serial programming must be watched in the order that it was originally presented.
Thus, for serial series, while the sequence for future viewing is particularly important, re-runs of episodes of the series will not always be available in the sequence that they were originally presented. Sequence may be important for some episodic series as well. For example, a user who watches some episodes of the series “Seinfeld” out of sequence may not recognize or understand certain characters, themes, or plot elements that were introduced in previous unwatched episodes. Even when television programs are in re-runs in their original season, not all episodes are necessarily provided, and the episodes that are provided may not be provided in sequence. Viewers may also simply miss an episode or series of episodes.
It is therefore desirable to provide systems and methods that may allow users to record some or all episodes of a series conveniently and thereby to view the episodes of a series in order.